Posted March 3, 2006.

University of Iowa Assists in Katrina Preservation Efforts

The preservation department of the University of Iowa Libraries in Iowa City has begun repair work on documents owned by the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library in Biloxi, Mississippi, that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Project CALM (Conservation Attention for Libraries of Mississippi), which also plans to assist the Biloxi Public Library with historical document preservation, is the brainchild of UI Conservator Gary Frost, who visited the Gulf Coast last September as part of a team to assess damage to libraries in the region.

Frost said that the project would last for three years and serve as a model for other preservation organizations that wish to launch similar efforts. “Cultural renewal depends in part on the survival of historical records,” he said in a March 1 news release. “We’re doing this one library at a time, once manuscript at a time. It’s something that any preservation department at any major research library could do.”

Following the American Library Association Annual Conference in New Orleans in June, Frost and UI Head of Preservation and Conservation Nancy E. Kraft plan to travel to Biloxi and arrange for additional preservation efforts with the Davis library and BPL.

Posted March 3, 2006.